


Lies Vs Stories

by bootson



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Book/Movie 2: Catching Fire, Canon Compliant, Drabble, F/M, I have no idea what I’m doing, This is the first thing I’ve written in this fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 10:15:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29416983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bootson/pseuds/bootson
Summary: Peeta’s perspective as he creates chaos at the Quarter Quell interviews.
Relationships: Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark
Comments: 6
Kudos: 23





	Lies Vs Stories

**Author's Note:**

> I haven’t written in ages and haven’t written for this fandom at all. Please be gentle. Hopefully, I’ll have some ideas and be back to writing regularly since I’ve revisited this obsession recently.

Liar. 

Peeta hears his mother’s voice in his head sometimes. A pointed, harsh tone yelling in his ear repeats the word from so many times in his childhood. He’d always been one to avoid punishment, try to at least. It worked about half the time. 

It has to work now. 

Peeta looks out at the sea of ostentatious outfits and hair choices. He takes in the lights that are blinding and too hot for comfort. His eyes shift to Caesar, and he knows he has them right where he wants them. 

The other tributes have built up to this without knowing. They’ve tugged at heartstrings and loosed pointed one liners. They’ve built this into the tragedy it is in a way the audience can tolerate. But they didn’t expect they were setting him up so well. 

They’re darlings, Peeta and Katniss, the way all Victors are the following year. They’re the couple everyone has been rooting for until the moment it became clear they were a tragedy instead of a romance. 

So Peeta does the only thing he knows he can do. He pulls a lie out of the back of his mind. He stirs up as much emotion as he can. He tells Caesar - 

“If it weren’t for the baby.”

He doesn’t have to wait long. It’s chaos in an instant. Just like he planned. Just like he’d warned Haymitch, to expect a reaction, without tipping his hand. 

He’s rushed off immediately. Takes his place with the others. Joins hands. But he barely registers it. They’re all angry, The Victors. Now let the Capitol citizens be too. 

He’s a liar, when he needs to be, all right. But, oh, he’s good at it. 

That makes it different from a lie. It’s all part of the game. Something to keep the Capital citizens up at night in despair. A tale to annoy the game makers as they try to spin this as anything different than what he’s made it out to be.

It’s a story. And he’s good at those.


End file.
